


Filling in the Gaps

by Bookaholic346



Series: The Uchiha Differences [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 15:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6526039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookaholic346/pseuds/Bookaholic346
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Side-stories and snippets from the main story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Filling in the Gaps

He regretted it later. Even though when he calmed down and looked at the situation rationally, he knew that he probably couldn't have chosen any differently, he still felt regret over the whole business. His clan. His family. His duty.

He should not have taken the step back and told the Hokage it was okay to cremate the massacre victims without any kind of ceremony.

Realistically speaking, there was no other option. On an initial level, sealing scrolls could only keep a corpse fresh for so long. Funerals simply could not be put off to a later date unless he wanted to dishonour the dead by burning them half-rotted. Somehow he didn't think that's how the children wanted their last memory of their families to be. On a deeper level, there was a problem of security. Over a hundred bodies, three-quarters of them with awakened sharingan on some level. If they didn't do something with those corpses soon, sooner or later someone was going to pinch a couple and make an attempt to steal the clan's dojutsu. The Copy-Nin was a walking example of how the sharingan could be successfully transplanted, as well as an example of how much of a power boost just one eye could give. Hatake was a genius without the eye. With the dojutsu, he was a _monster_.

So... the bodies had to be dealt with. As quickly as humanly possible. That meant handing power over the the Hokage to cremate his relatives using Hunter-nin disposal facilities. There was no time for proper ceremony for the dead; not with so many to burn on such a tight schedule. At least the Hunter-nin had the decency to set aside the ashes for the broken remains of the clan, instead of tossing them to the wind like they did to most of their cremation jobs.

Itachi tried not to think about the fact that usually the Hunter-nin were only tasked with cremating traitors, criminals and prisoners. People that didn't deserve proper funeral rites yet still needed to be rid of. He especially tried not to think about the fact that it was actually appropriate for the Hunters to dispose of his kin, even though the entire village viewed the massacre as a tragedy, not the ugly, necessary disposal of dissidents that it actually was.

But by the time that he started thinking seriously about his duty to the dead, instead of focussing on the eighteen still alive and depending on him, it was too late. He was presented with boxes of ash instead of the bodies of the fallen, to do with what he wanted.

He didn't know what he wanted.

That was a lie. He knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted to avert his eyes again and let the Hokage and the Hunter-nin take care of it once more. He didn't want to deal with ashes. Especially not those big boxes of jumbled grey powder. He _really_ didn't want the kids to deal with the ashes. He knew that they would be upset at the lack of ceremony afforded to their kin. _He_ was upset, and he was a fourteen-year-old shinobi veteran with the ability to compartmentalise his feelings.

Idly he wondered which box his parents were in.

At that thought he had to leave the boxes behind briefly to go and relieve his stomach of its contents in the bathroom. All of the Hunter-nin politely turned a blind eye.

For lack of a better option, Itachi had the boxes stored carefully away in the secret room below the shrine. It didn't feel right to store the ashes off clan land, so he knew he had to store them _somewhere_ in the district, but it didn't feel right to store them anywhere the blood of the massacre had touched. The room below the shrine had been a safe haven once, now it would be again, protecting the remains of their clan as well as it had the children.

Itachi decided it would be best not to be the one to bring up funeral rites. He didn't want to push the children into something they didn't want to think about too early. For the moment they were all just focussed on struggling through the fact that their parents weren't around anymore. And that their beds in the medical centre were not permanent, but going back to their old homes wasn't an option either.

Itachi could hear too many muffled crying fits under covers at night these days. Sasuke's sobs in the bed next to his were almost heartbreaking enough to send him over the edge.

He wondered what it would be like to slip over the edge, to collapse in on himself for just a moment. When Danzo had ordered him to wipe out the clan, he knew full well what that meant. It meant snuffing out the lives of almost two hundred people. Blood and death was something he was intimately familiar with. Just because he wasn't the one that struck the killing blows in the end did not absolve him of guilt. Facing the reality of the massacre's aftermath, Itachi realised that he hadn't fully grasped the scale of death that this would bring. He hadn't realised what a crutch his family had been until it had been snatched from him. No matter what foul thing he did in the name of Konoha, no matter who he killed or how, the clan was always there when he came home. A constant blanket of approval and acceptance. He may not have been on the best terms with his family, but they always supplied that invisible cradle of support without asking. He barely recognised that it was there until it was gone.

What was he supposed to do without them?

Like any good shinobi, like any good Uchiha, he endured. He put the boxes of ash out of his head and poured all his attention on the living members of the clan. The dead could wait, he told himself. The living needed him more.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is something that I wrote a while ago, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do with it. Obviously, it didn't quite fit in with 'A Different Decision', nor does it fit with 'A Different Goal'. It's set between the two, and basically exists to remind everyone that as the head of the clan, Itachi didn't just have to deal with the living kids, he also had to make the morbid decisions when it came to what to do with all the dead. I don't think I really got deep into what Itachi was feeling right after the massacre once all the adrenaline wore off and he time to think properly about what had happened, but the guilt and grief must have been horrific.  
> And that's just how things went down when it came to the dead in this AU. Just think about Sasuke having to make all these decisions alone in canon.  
> :(
> 
> And now that I have probably successfully bummed everyone out - laters!


End file.
